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Monday, April 18, 2016

#524 - Rob Wilfong

What a card: Rob Wilfong was coming off basically his last productive major league season when this card was issued. He'd hang on for a couple more years thanks to his glove, but he struggled through them on offense.

My observation on the front: I don't hold much nostalgia for the Angels, but I would like the "state" logo to return. I suppose that's not realistic since they're not the "California Angels" anymore. But if the team can take credit for being from both Los Angeles and Anaheim, they can make this work, too.

More opinion from me: Wilfong was one of those "forever mustache" guys. Wilfong wearing a mustache on his baseball card was one of the few guarantees in life in the 1980s.

Something you might know: Wilfong's one-out base hit in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 5 of the 1986 ALCS scored Ruppert Jones with the game-tying run for the Angels against the Red Sox and the two teams went to extra innings tied 6-6. Wilfong's hit came after Dave Henderson's famous 3-run home run in the top of the inning that brought the Red Sox back from trailing 5-2 to leading 6-5 entering the inning. Henderson would later drive in the winning run in the 11th on a sacrifice fly.

Something you might not know: Wilfong, a scout with the Angels, joined team scouting director Ric Wilson in choosing pitcher Jonah Dipoto on the final day of the baseball draft last June. Dipoto is the son of Jerry Dipoto, who was the Angels' general manager at the time. Jerry Dipoto is now GM of the Mariners. Jonah is a freshman at the University of California San Diego.

My observation on the back: Nice of the trivia quiz to have an Angels-centric question on an Angels' player's card. Don't know why that couldn't have happened on the previous card.

-- The Hardball Times-- HighHeatStats.com-- Honolulu Star-Bulletin-- "If These Walls Could Talk, Los Angeles Dodgers" - Houston Mitchell--IMDb.com-- "Is This a Great Game or What?" - Tim Kurkijan-- the Ivy League